I'm Dr. Tracey Marks a psychiatrist and in this video I talk about some of the
ways ADD can affect relationships this is part of a series of videos that I've
done on ADD so for more information about ADD as a brain disorder and some
of the symptoms check out the playlist that I reference in the top corner. to
see what kind of impact your ADD is having on relationships here's a series
of ten situations that are pretty typical for a person with ADD. I'll
present the situation and you think about whether it's something that
happens at all, just rarely or pretty frequently. Here we go. My partner says
that I zone out instead of listening.
I forget the things that I agreed to do. My
partner complains that I never finish what I start.
we argue about how I spend money or pay bills. my partner says I can't be trusted
to do what I say. the clutter in my office shop or garage is a point of
contention for us. we fight about my losing track of time. My partner nags me
a lot. I often wait until the last minute to get things done which causes problems
for us. I lose my temper when we argue. So how do you fare? Or are you on the
receiving end of some of this stuff? a person who does not have ADD and in a
relationship with someone who does and dealing with these kinds of issues it
can be very difficult and frustrating. and if you're a parent with ADD your
inattentiveness or forgetfulness can be hard on your children or hard from them
them to understand. your child may think you just don't care and that's the
impression they're left with because people with ADD can appear to be aloof
and it comes from not always being clicked in and involved in the moment.
I want to give a few tips to help work through some of these problems from both
sides. I have six tips for the partner with ADD and five for the person
without. first for the partner with ADD number one if your relationship problems
seem to be caused by your ADD, recognize that you have a disorder that can be
helped. Not everyone with ADD needs medication, but some people really do
need help to reduce the dysfunction that the ADD causes. number two use alarms
and reminders on your phone or calendar for medication and appointments. number
three if you are on medications take your medications on the weekends if
you're having problems or these kinds of problems on the weekends. I usually
advise my patients to skip days with the stimulant medications like Adderall and
Ritalin. ideally this would be on the weekends or vacations for the person
who works Monday through Friday. the purpose of this is to slow down the
tolerance that you can develop from taking these medications daily. however
for people who have car accidents and are so impaired that they're extremely
disorganized, these people usually need to take their medications every day
whether or not they're working. number four the best way to prevent nagging is
to follow through and I know this is easier said than done and what it means
is you have to prioritize doing whatever it takes to get the task completed all
the way through. number five when your partner is talking try to make sure to
listen all the way through to the end of their sentence and their thoughts. That
means giving them a chance to stop talking before you comment. if you can't
tell if they're done, a moving mouth means they're still talking. an open
mouth means they're talking and probably not done with their thought. so
let the mouth close and stay closed for at least ten seconds and this means you
got to look. You got to look at them while they're talking to you. You can't be on
phone, you can't be multitasking when someone's talking because then you're
not gonna know whether their mouth is opened or closed sometimes it's very
hard not to interrupt when you feel like you've heard enough and you want to get
your point in before you forget, but don't just blast in with your point. if
you have a thought that comes up while you're talking, see if you can make a
note of what you want to say even if it means asking the person to pause to let
you write down a quick thought before they continue. the person shouldn't mind
pausing if they know they'll be able to finish. number six create time buffers.
Often being late is because you underestimate how long things will take
or you just don't think about timing at all. well with GPS on our phones is easy
to see how long a trip should take but you also have to take into account the
amount of time it takes for you to put on your shoes gather your belongings and
get in the car. do you usually have to go to the bathroom before you walk out the
door? Do you have to spend time looking for your keys? All of those things have
to be taken into account time wise. Impatience is a feature of a ADD and
often a person with ADD would rather walk into an event late then arrive
early and have all this idle time to waste. So if the idea of wasting time
being early sounds painful, plan to take something with you to keep you occupied.
Catch up on your Instagram feed. Here's an example. if you need to be somewhere
at 11 o'clock and your GPS tells you it's a 30-minute drive, you need to have
your key in the ignition at 10:25 just to give yourself five extra minutes of
wiggle room. but then you need to allow for 15 to 20 minutes of looking for your
keys and other getting out of the door stuff. so now when we look at the time
that you need to stop all activities, you need to stop that stuff by 10:05 to get
ready to leave this is in contrast to you thinking that you'd only take 230
minutes to get there so at 10:30 you'll start getting ready you
to add in your time buffer. Now for the partner without ADD. I have five tips.
the first thing to establish is recognizing that your partner's brain is
wired differently. The forgetting and the not paying attention is not intentional
they have a problem and they need your help keeping their lives running
smoothly. number two don't get in the cycle of relating to your partner as a
parent instead of a partner. no one wants to be talked to like a third grader
except a third grader. I'm not a third grader. so you may say well if you do
what you're supposed to do then I don't need to speak to you that way.
No, you have to remember that they really do want to do things correctly they just
aren't because they don't have all the tools to do it. number three if you need
a task completed by specific time write it down and be specific. you probably
also need to anticipate the consequences for them because remember the person
with ADD also has trouble with planning and foresight. so here's a personal
example of what I mean. suppose I say to my husband do you want to go to this
party on Saturday at two o'clock? now I know that he may not want to go because
that time interferes with his regular gym workout in fact he has a class that
he's probably not gonna want to miss. but he says of course I want to go honey I
just want to be with you. So I RSVP yes that we'll be there. Then on
Saturday at 11:30. the party's at 2:00 I see him walking out the door to go to
the gym and I say well don't forget we need to leave for the party at 1:30 and
he says "What party?" I say it's the one that I asked you about and you said yes you
were going to go he says I got my class, I can't go to the party. I get angry
because I think you should have thought about that when I asked you. I gave you
the opportunity to think that through you should have told me then that you
didn't want to go. mm-hmm don't do that. a redo of that scenario
would be for me to say ahead of time do you want to go to the party on Saturday
at 2 if you go it means missing your gym class? see I need to say all of that
because he's not thinking about how the party will impact his daily routine so
when I ask I need to anticipate what his objections may be and put it out there
for him so that he can make an informed decision.
Number 4 try asking for what you want instead of telling and you can use
please and thank you but watch the tone and don't beg or imply that you've
already asked 50 times and you know he's probably not gonna do it. so for example
if your partner forgets to take out the trash on trash day remind him or her the
night before and maybe even make a note and put it on the door or something to
help them remember to take out the trash. but you don't want to say are you gonna
take out the trash this time? Reminding your partner that they always mess
things up doesn't motivate them to try harder the next time. you have to
remember they unintentionally forget things. Things just slip their minds
super easily. number 5 ask for one thing at a time lists can be difficult for
people with ADD. now of course there's always the option of getting
professional help if things become too difficult and having a professional
independent person can help you navigate through some of these issues to help
strengthen your relationship. they could do it in a similar way that I'm talking
now whereas now I'm talking generically but your own therapist can help you work
with specific issues in your relationship. Thanks for watching this
video. cClick the like button if you liked it and leave me a comment if you have
any questions.
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